FreePBX 2.8 out the Door and 2.9 Coming Strong

We are excited to have the 2.8 release finalized and released for general availability. We moved to final release status at the beginning of this past week finishing the [url=/v2/milestone/2.8]2.8 Milestone[/url] with [url=/v2/query?status=closed&group=component&milestone=2.8&order=priority]332 closed tickets[/url] comprising of 231 bugs and 101 feature requests and similar. As always, a majority of the bug fixes are bugs from version 2.7 and earlier which are usually only addressed in the new release.

The efforts of 2.8 have been going strong since the beginning of March and we extended the beta testing period to assure a solid release since there were several changes in critical sections of the dialplan. There are way too many changes to recap all the added benefits throughout the release, some visible, some hidden. Some of the big areas that had substantial improvements include [url=/news/2010-03-20/sneak-preview-of-2-8]Outbound Routes[/url] (and some visual changes to outbound trunks), the new [url=/news/2010-05-09/preview-the-all-new-directory]Company Directory[/url], some [url=/news/2010-05-30/high-availability-backup-and-restore]HA related enhancements to the Backup and Restore module[/url], some significant scalability improvements to Queues, [url=/news/2010-03-20/sneak-preview-of-2-8]visual improvements to tool tips and “destination select boxes”[/url] thoughout and a host of other enhancements and new features across the system.

Join the 3900 systems who have moved to 2.8 so far and spend some time digging around to see what new features may be valuable to your system!

While we relish in a job well done on 2.8, the steam is already building up on work for 2.9! I mentioned plans around the Endpoint Manager and DAHDi configuration modules in [url=/news/2010-07-06/plans-for-the-next-milestone-2-9]last week’s blog[/url] and progress on that front continues to be strong! The definition of other features for 2.9 is still very much in the planning state as you will notice if you visit the [url=/v2/milestone/2.9]2.9 Milestone[/url]. We’ve had some suggestions in the forums and in tickets concerning other important areas people would like us to work on but more input is very welcome. If you already have feature requests in the ticket system, feel free to bump them onto the the radar scope. We will be looking though existing requests but they can be easy to miss when there are almost 500 tickets to sift through!

For now, have a great weekend and then we look forward to your help in defining the next great release!